This invention relates to seat belt buckle covers or guards. More particularly, the invention relates to a flexible belt buckle guard for preventing young children from unfastening themselves from a vehicular safety restraint. The invention further relates to a safety belt buckle guard having more universal applications.
Seat belts, or safety restraints, have been standard equipment on passenger vehicles for more than a generation. Under Federal law, children up to age two must now be restrained in an acceptable safety seat during any vehicular travel. Some states have extended mandatory seat belt wearing for children up to four, five, six or even nine years of age. In still other states, safety belts must now be worn by every driver and passenger regardless of age. The rationale for such laws has been repeatedly proven by statistics, namely that safety belts save lives. Safety belts are only effective at preventing injury and death as long as they remain engaged or fastened, however.
When travelling by car, most young children cannot avoid being drawn to the colorful belt and often shiny metallic buckle engaged around their waists, or around the safety seats in which they ride. For some safety seat designs, the belt buckle release mechanism is within easy reach of the child/occupant. So often, a child's hands naturally rest on or about the safety belt buckle assembly. Such hands will quickly learn how to disengage most any belt buckle without ever once witnessing another perform the same task.
Although children as old as one or two have sufficient strength and dexterity to operate the release mechanisms of most vehicular safety belts, they are not old enough to appreciate the importance of remaining fastened at all times. Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death and crippling injury for young children in this country. As many as 700 children under five die each year from injuries sustained as motor vehicle passengers. Adults cannot always maintain constant supervision over their young passengers to assure that they remained fastened in appropriate safety restraints. To do so would be a greater distraction to drivers causing even more accidents, injuries and deaths. Hence, there exists a clear need for preventing babies, toddlers and other young children from unfastening or unbuckling themselves from such safety devices.
With any safety belt cover or guard design, there is no need to raise concerns about the operation of hidden or tricky release mechanisms by emergency medical personnel. In an accident or other emergency, paramedics are now trained to cut away safety belts rather than to waste time unfastening safety restraints of various sorts.
In Lamb U.S. Pat. No. 3,484,908, there is disclosed a safety belt cover consisting of two integrally molded faces that form a hollow cylinder into which an engaged belt buckle is slidably received. It is intended to prevent anyone from accidentally operating the quick release lever of an airplane safety belt or the like.
Kuszynski U.S. Pat. No. 3,566,455 shows a belt buckle cover with a flexible section 45 that extends over the buckle release mechanism to assist in its manual depression. This cover is not intended to prevent young children from operating said buckle release mechanism, however.
Orton U.S. Pat. No. 4,624,033 shows a child safety seatbelt securement device with a plastic housing for a complex release button actuator. The female end of a seatbelt buckle slides within one channel of this housing. Numerous housing shapes would be needed to accomodate the various belt buckle sizes on vehicles currently sold in this country.
In Gullickson U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,954, there is claimed a seat belt buckle cover having an outer surface which overlays the release control of a belt buckle, said outer surface being sufficiently rigid to prevent young children from activating the release but not so resilient as to prevent adults from activating the same control. By design, this cover is proportioned to slip over only one particular belt buckle shape.
Boriskie et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,731,912 shows a hinged buckle guard for encasing standard GM, Ford and Chrysler seat belt buckles within a latched plastic box. This guard would not accomodate other than standard size belt buckles, however.